Rameli apparently contacted Rewcastle-Brown last year, asking to meet in London – which they did after Christmas

Hadi allegedly made initial offer of £100,000

Possible that PAS may not have paid Rameli back

Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle-Brown still insists the out-of-court settlement with PAS was made by Keretapi Tanah Melayu Bhd (KTMB) chairman Datuk Rameli Musa on behalf of the party.

Online news portal Malaysiakini reported that Rewcastle-Brown had confirmed with them that Rameli made the payment.

It added that she had “no doubt that Rameli was acting on the behalf of PAS and its president Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang”.

She said Rameli had to keep going back for approval from PAS and Hadi after she rejected Hadi’s initial offer of £100,000 (RM536,064) to drop the suit.

“He had to go back to ask them, and so it went on until eventually we arrived at a sum which I found to be sufficient to pay my lawyers without losing too much money over this case.

“It was clear that Hadi was being consulted at every turn and the people around him,” she said, adding that Hadi’s lawyer also knew about it as they were the ones who drew up the terms of the settlement for the court.

The report also said Rewcastle-Brown had challenged Hadi to reveal his version of the confidential terms of their out-of-court settlement.

She added that Hadi “can’t just deny it”.

“If there were confidential terms, and it wasn’t my payment, what does he think it was?” she asked.

Before this, Rewcastle-Brown had published documents to prove that she received RM1.423mil for the out-of-court settlement with PAS.

PKR vice-president Rafizi Ramli then revealed that the owner of the bank account that the RM1.4mil cheque was issued from was Rameli.

Rameli has since been quizzed by the Malaysian Anti-Cor­ruption Commission (MACC) over the alleged payment.

Meanwhile, Rewcastle-Brown had nothing but praise for Rameli.

“I didn’t wish to publicise it, this was a very honourable respectable gentleman, who I think has assisted PAS financially over the years and has been a good patron of Hadi’s for the very best possible reasons.

“I think he is a very devout man, and I think he was very upset by the problems that Hadi had led the party into and he wanted to try and extract PAS from the embarrassing court case that it was in.

“He has been a perfect gentleman, and I’m sorry he had to get dragged into it,” Rewcastle-Brown told Malaysiakini last night.

She said she first met Rameli in Kuala Lumpur while she was gathering background information on PAS.

She said he then contacted her sometime last year asking to meet her in London, which she did after Christmas.

“At that meeting, he told me the people around Hadi were desperate for an agreement and he had agreed (to help), perhaps against his better judgement.

“He still had a lot of goodwill towards the party and he felt sorry for Hadi,” she was quoted as saying.

Rewcastle-Brown also claimed it was possible that PAS may not have paid Rameli back for his assistance.

“It’s entirely possible and I suspect probably that PAS, having said they would front up the money, didn’t and probably didn’t pay him back.

“He did write that cheque because my lawyer wouldn’t accept this offer of a bag of cash from PAS, and so, therefore, Rameli agreed to sign a post-dated cheque giving himself 10 days to get the money before I cashed that cheque.

“Whether or not PAS fulfilled its obligation and paid Rameli his money back, I don’t know, but Rameli as an upright businessperson certainly stood by his cheque,” she was quoted as saying.